Koockaburra101

Watch Richard Dawkins build an eye: Part 1 http://youtu.be/sUjd8x-1xM0 Part 2 http://youtu.be/ffcWKOZfTxE This of course won't convince anyone but it may be interesting for those of us already "on board"

Was that directed at me? Because I never called them "mods" I don't think they're asking you to forget about them necessarily, they're just saying that they aren't too worried about contradicting the expansion packs when making the newer games. You can still enjoy the game even if it isn't relevant to the sequels.

Except for that Marc Laidlaw has stated directly that the gearbox-stuff isn't taken into account as seen here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=920482

You should really try the Baldur's Gate series

It's worth pointing out that the expansions to HL1 were not developed by Valve so the things in them are not necessarily considered part of the story. The addition of the new aliens in Opposing Force can be easily explained by the fact that you can no longer fight the soldiers since you are one of them Which mens they had to find some suitable replacement.

Brave of you to admit that, have some rep Do you see communism as just an hypothetical ideal or as something that can actually be achieved? If the latter, how do you think the transition would work?

No, I am saying that in a court case where both people claim to have been wronged by the other person certainty is often not possible. If you bring me to court because you feel I've infringed on your freedom in some way and I claim that you are the one who did it to me and there is no really substantial evidence to suggest that either of us is obviously lying, how can the court then claim objectivity? It's easy to say that it's possible but in legal matters it very often becomes a question of interpretation and as soon as that happens any objectivity goes out the window. And besides, by what system will it be determined who runs courts and passes out judgments? I was taking issue with the example of murder you provided where it was obvious who was in the wrong. Surely you realize that it's often more complicated and obscure than that and that the system you propose would have to be able to deal with such situations without contradicting itself. So what I'm saying isn't that we can't know anything, but that we often don't know things, which is very hard to reconcile with your claim to objectivity.

I was disappointed with the crossbow in Half-Life 2. The one in the original was my favorite weapon and It seems superior in every way to the one in the second game.

Nice one, can't wait for you to get to questionable ethics

Can be downloaded here: http://www.hidden-source.com/ Haven't played for a long time so I'm not sure how actively it's being played at the moment, doesn't seem to have been updated in a long time either.

It's not possible to prove a negative. No one can prove the non-existence of god just as you can't prove the non-existence of Zeus, Isis, Thor, the easter bunny or santa clause. I assume you don't believe in any (or at least most) of the things I mentioned even though we can't prov that they aren't real. Unless of course you're coming at it from a more personal perspective. Just out of curiosity, what would be the kind of thing that would convince you that there is no god?

I'm not saying the chance is 100% I'm saying that Pascal was wrong in presenting it as a 50/50 chance. After all if you are a Christian and I am an atheist and it turns out the Muslims are right we'll both be less than fortunate after we die. And when we account for the many gods that have been thought up by humans over the years and the practically infinite amounts of gods we haven't even thought of the difference between our chances are negligible at best. I'm not sure about you but if I now converted to Christianity just to avoid the possibility of hell (which as I said wouldn't really help me that much but whatever), do you think I would deserve heaven when I die? Pascal's wager depends on this god being willing to let me in anyway even if I only professed to believe out of fear. I'm of the opinion that such a god would be a very unpleasant character so it surprises me when religious people use Pascal's wager as an argument, because it suggests that the god they believe in only cares for what you claim to believe and not at all for what your reasons for that belief is, which after all he has access too since he's omnipotent according to most people who I've seen present that argument.

Did you even read my reply? I'm saying it's not a valid way of thinking about the issue since it assumes there are only two possible outcomes when in reality no matter what religion you are you have pretty much the same chance of getting screwed over by the afterlife as an atheist does. I also said that if I were religious I wouldn't use that argument since that would mean that my god is either incredibly cynical or horribly stupid.

See my reply on the first page of this topic.

Again you keep persisting in misunderstanding what a scientific "theory" means

Yes, Pascal's wager, it has been discussed in this topic already and it's not at all a helpful way to think about things.

Well agnosticism simply is the idea that the existence/non-existence of god cannot be known which isn't the same thing as saying you personally don't know. I'm agnostic in the sense that I don't think we can ever have certainty about god, but I do say that there is currently no reason to believe in a god or to live as if there was one. In exactly the same way we can never be really certain that there is no tooth-fairy but we can all probably agree that there isn't much reason to assume there is such a thing. In my experience a lot of people who identify as atheists agree with this, which technically makes them agnostic. I think the main difference between those who say they are agnostics and those who say they are atheists isn't so much in what they believe but rather in how they express those beliefs in their daily lives. An self-identified agnostic beyond saying "I don't know" may also ad "I don't car much either", while a self-identified atheist will say "I don't know" but then say "but I have no reason whatsoever to live with the assumption that there is a god". I would hope that any serious religious person would also agree that they cannot with certainty know that there is a god but that they find it beneficial to live with the assumption of his/her/its existence.

Atheism is a lack of belief in a certain proposition. Science is a method used to gain understanding of the world/universe we live in. The two aren't as intimately connected as some seem to think. I don't know what definition of "religious belief" you are going by but I have yet to hear one that would fit to describe the scientific method. For something to be considered a scientific theory it has to be repeatable, falsifiable and make predictions. Newtons theory of gravity for example could be used to calculate orbits and such very precisely so that when they launch spacecraft to a planet/moon they know where to "aim" to hit their mark just as it crosses their path. Another example would be the theory of evolution. It was thought of before the discovery of DNA, and once that was discovered scientists knew that if different organisms didn't share common DNA the Darwinian theory would be falsified, since it postulates that all species are related and share common ancestry. As you probably know this turned out to be correct which made it into a very convincing prediction made by the theory.

I'd say your "humanity" has little to do with how you react to such things, but I guess it depends on what you mean by that. If you mean purely psychologically I'd find it hard to argue that there is something wrong with either side of that line so to speak. Feeling happy when someone you consider a bad person dies is a pretty normal response I'd think as is experiencing a sense of waste at the loss of human life. As it happens I'm with you in that I'm not particularly happy with the outcome but I understand how some people are, neither response is more or less "human" than the other. You could of course view it from a moral/philosophical perspective as well and ask the question if this is a just way to deal with such people but I guess that isn't what your post is about?

Yeah, and humans have a pretty long time for each generation which also make those type of changes rather hard to spot in the short time we've been around. There have however been some interesting experiments done on fruit flies. They have a much shorter time per generation and scientists have been able to breed them in a lab so quickly that they could see some rather substantial changes in their fly population. The thing about selective pressure is also very important. It doesn't seem that strong on our species but when it is it can produce surprising (to us) results in a rather (in evolutionary terms) short time. Prime examples would be one of the many species that are results of human cultivating and selective breeding, like dogs, cows and carrots.

I played it a few times long ago, it's a mod for HL2. It's a multiplayer game where one person plays "The Hidden" and tries to kill everyone else who play as normal marines. The Hidden is permanently invisible, can jump high, climb walls and is armed with a knife. The marines are armed with normal weapons and have to work together to find and kill The Hidden. Not sure if it's changed much since i last played. I remember it being very tense and scary to play, especially since the hidden can manipulate the corpses of your fallen teammates and pin them to walls/ceilings and such. Not fun when your the last one left

The smartness thing isn't that hard to explain. First of all evolution works slower than the time frame you mentioned. Second of all, "smartness" isn't necessarily selected for, the smartness genes only spread if smart people get to breed more than non-smart ones, which maybe isn't the case in our society. Thirdly it all depends on your definition of smartness. If I remember correctly the average IQ of people has been going up a little in the last few generations at least, but maybe that's not what you're after?

And science doesn't have anything to do with atheism so I don't see why its being discussed in this thread

What Darwin thought is irrelevant, the (alleged) opinion of the originator has no bearing on the truth of the theory, surely you realize that? Most of the evidence we have for the theory wasn't even available to him since DNA wasn't even discovered yet. But please, let's hear a basic description of the theory of evolution as you understand it. If only to bring some clarity to this discussion.

Did you even read the rest of my post? You know what, never mind that. Why don't you just post your understanding of the evolutionary theory. Because the more you post the more I have this sinking feeling that you don't have the faintest clue what it's actually about.